-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 8:58 AM -0400 on 11/9/99, Ian Grigg wrote, on the egold list, re yesterday's IETF micropay BOF: > Wot's the scuttlebut? IBM and ATT both have counter-cash book-entry credit-card/telephone billing accumulators, which, apparently, look a lot alike structurally, and are both patented and/or PAF. That should be fun. Compaq (nee DEC) has merchant-issued (to absolutely, positively, prevent double-spending) bearer scrip, capable of, um, millicents. Also patented. The W3C is building (or has built, depending on who you listen to) pay-per-click XML. Probably not patented. IBUC <large intake of breath> will pay -- or hopes to pay -- some clueful IETFer to build a public-domain (spec and reference code), millidollar and smaller, fully-fungible, unsigned, internet bearer transaction system using a generally accepted, and preferrably unencumbered, bearer financial cryptography protocol. Little money first, bigger money soon, biggest money later. All of the above folks would dearly love an IETF-approved(whatever) internet-level spec: Something which moves payments, preferrably micro ones, from Alice to Bob on the net regardless of the payment protocol, as long as it doesn't descriminate according to a whole set of variables we all don't have definitions for yet, including what, exactly, a micropayment is. The room was too small and too full, which was, at least, gratifying. Everyone who was there *really* wants to do micropayments on the net if they can figure out how to do it for, um, money. We've all been *really* trying to figure out how, and for at least 5 years, as far as anyone can tell. Even after all that some of us still think we can, for some reason. :-). So, to be perfectly frank, it appears a bunch of historically-non-IETFers (every single person speaking, me included, except for J[...] I[...] :-) of ATT, who quite fortunately got shoehorned into the agenda at the last minute, had never been to IETF before; including, apparently, the BOF's substitute chairman, flown in from Isreal by IBM for the occasion at the late minute), called a meeting to get the IETF to Do Something, which is not generally a good way to get IETF folks to do anything. Lots of people observed lots of things, but the observation I remember most came from Jon Callas: Maybe IETF folk will be motivated to write a standard, but first there has to be enough running code for there to be a rough consensus. Or something. My personal opinion is, cool, let's go buy/build some running code and make it all go, because we're burning daylight, and we have nothing to lose but our transfer-priced information goods and services. Finally, and maybe most important, Fearghas McKay has set up a list for - -->IETF<-- folks to talk about getting an -->IETF<-- micropay working-group[s] together (or not), and then getting [a] spec[s], etc., together, (or not), called, appropriately enough, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. It can be subscribed to (I hope I got this right) here: <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]>. See you all there. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP Personal Privacy 6.5.1 iQEVAwUBOChR58UCGwxmWcHhAQHUlQgApMPfFzUxiJHM4WRmSHFYfiJSCjK3b/VU XQIirf3/LVDkG5K7V9NK+u4bn4P+jiB7ohaKbbXsn9JyCQQVFDKrsKVUWWdbp7J7 o/gTS3xFm2WKkrM1vQgJMwG646Y39rduAzA3LbyoO9tEAVAyT6HA3XXUIuhjTMB2 csrD0CgzXCcHuEv36aBdNmuDwoYbdM/OQjtRHHaT4P/bl+kIJo0JHKJcxSzudcLa E9ry7Ib0RjKRcIPESQn+L92L5hhOkFzpaSge0knZ5rDg2C/QrjLKSTro2jF3f6oI w3gVin9h+c/bZoc49FdDRVFdGNlJzaBzxmGcoVIYllfeZOXmQHjSqQ== =fTa3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Camels, fleas, and princes exist everywhere." -- Persian proverb
